“Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations of the heavens trembled and quaked, because he was angry.
Whilst this is a poem, and we shouldn’t expect it to reflect science, speech of the supports of the heavens was hardly just poetry in the Ancient Near East. In Egypt, the air god Shu is described as supporting the sky, and in Mesopotamia, there are ‘bonds of heaven’, and Tiamat’s crotch holds up the heavens. I suspect then that David really did think there were foundations of heavens.
That said, I also think that the etymology of Raqia in no way necessitates a solid reading, though there is no reason why an ‘expanse’ ought to be non-solid.
I’ve yet to see Jon Garvey give a response to any of these verses. He did respond to me on 2 Samuel 22:8 once, but he did so in a way which accomplished little. Even when it was little more than air, the heavens still required support!
Prepositions don’t map perfectly as far as semantics go from language to language. Plus, one look at the Hebrew interlinear should show you the text doesn’t say what you say it says: Genesis 1 Interlinear Bible
These look like pretty good translations to me:
"let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” NIV
“let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” NASB
“let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” ESV
Clearly the concept was there was space below the solid firmament where the birds flew.
You are a little late to the party… we’ve talked this one to death.
Some English translations say birds fly in the firmament. But because this is implied syntax, the other translations that use terms like “near” the firmament, “around”, and even “by” the firmament are equally valid, linguistically - - and much more valid in terms of fitting the context.
While several traditional translations chose to interpret the “firrmament” as an [empty] Expanse… it is most difficult to roll up “emptiness” like a carpet.
Ahhhh… .and I see now @Christy’s very nice list of alternatives!
"These look like pretty good translations to me: “let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” NIV "let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” NASB “let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” ESV "
But as for the blue … they thought the blue was an ocean.
And naturally, if there is a giant ocean across the sky, there has to be something keeping it up there.
The Egyptians depicted the sky as a goddess doing yoga over the Earth… feet and hands touching the opposing horizon.
The Babylonians had a theory of the firmament as well.
Why would you think the Genesis writer wouldn’t know about these ideas?
Of course they could know about those ideas. Moses (who I think was the Redactor of Genesis) was trained in all the learning of Egypt. But they didn’t have to listen to the many erroneous bits.
And how would Moses know which parts were erroneous? You just told us that there used to be a celestial ocean in orbit around the Earth. I would suggest that is to be included in the same pile as the erroneous bits.
